Congratulations to the 2020 Alumnae Award Recipients! Award recipients were celebrated with a private luncheon on Sunday, November 15, at the Park City Club in Dallas during Homecoming Weekend. View a video of the awards presentation and the recipients' acceptance remarks.

Distinguished Alumna Award: Tia Tortoriello Raymond ‘88

Dr. Tia Raymond is a board-certified pediatric cardiac intensivist who primarily treats pediatric patients who have congenital or acquired heart disease. 

After graduating from Ursuline in 1988, Tia attended Pepperdine University and then graduated from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in 1996. She completed her pediatrics residency at Children’s Medical Center Dallas and her pediatric cardiology fellowship at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association.

Dr. Raymond focuses on treating children before and after heart surgery and has a dedicated mission to obtain the best possible outcomes in pediatric cardiac critical care. She has worked in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Medical City Children’s Hospital in Dallas for the last 12 years. She has been recognized for the last three years as one of the Best Pediatric Specialists in Dallas for Pediatric Cardiology and Pediatric Critical Care by D Magazine. 

She has served as a volunteer and Chair on multiples committees for the American Heart Association, the Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee, and various committees for Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care. She is currently the Co-Chair for the development of the American Heart Association 2020 Pediatric Advanced Life Support Guidelines which focus on how lay providers and health care providers resuscitate children from cardiac arrest.

Dr. Raymond has authored four textbook chapters, and published over 50 peer-reviewed articles in internationally renowned journals and presented at national and international conferences. Her research interests primarily focus on pediatric in-hospital cardiac arrest, cardiac intensive care, and quality improvement.

Serviam Alumna: Cecilia Ackles Martin ‘84

Cecilia Ackles Martin is the youngest of 10 children of Isabel and Lawrence Ackels. She attended Saint Monica Catholic School where she began her life of service on Student Government. She continued serving her school at Ursuline where she served on the Intramurals Committee all four years and as Junior Class Vice President and then Student Body Vice President. She was member of the National Honor Society and performed many hours of community service at the Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. Upon graduating from Ursuline, she attended Spring Hill College.

At Spring Hill College, she continued her service in student government, serving as Junior Class President and Student Government President her Senior year. She was also selected as the Campus Mardi Gras Queen in 1984. Cecilia graduated from Spring Hill College magna cum laude and received the Andrea LaPointe Service Award. She was named Who’s Who Among American Colleges and Universities and Outstanding Young Women of America.  

Following college, Cecilia attended Southern Methodist University School of Law where she was the school Mock Trial Champion, Texas Young Lawyers Mock Trial Semi-Finalist, and member of the National Moot Court Team. She received the American Jurisprudence Award for Trial Advocacy and was selected to the National Order of the Barristers. 

Cecilia began her career as a trial attorney at the Dallas Office of the international firm of Baker & McKenzie, then the world’s largest law firm. While representing clients in several courts including the U.S. Supreme Court, Cecilia maintained her love of service, twice receiving the Dallas Bar Association’s Pro-Bono Award and volunteering as a Mock Trail Instructor and Coach for SMU. 

After retiring from Baker & McKenzie as the firm’s first woman to be selected as a National Partner in the Texas Offices, Cecilia focused her time on raising her six children. Since 2000, she has volunteered thousands of hours of service to her church, the children’s schools, and the Dallas community at large. Cecilia returned to work in 2016, as a licensing specialist at Addison Law Firm and continues to volunteer for many organizations and charities each year. 

Young Alumna: Erin O’Malley Gleim ‘10

Erin O’Malley Gleim is an attorney and advocate specializing in civil rights and access to healthcare and healthy living. She works with communities across the country to write better laws and policies to build health, wealth, and power for people who have been marginalized. 

Erin also serves on the boards of directors of two nonprofits. Project Commotion is a bilingual community space and preschool where children of all abilities can grow together. Integrated Community Services partners with people with disabilities on their path to independence.

While attending the University of Texas at Austin, Erin’s heart and lungs began to fail as a result of a rare congenital condition, and she had to leave school to seek treatment. After making a miraculous recovery, she returned to UT with a mission: make sure no other student with illness or disability lacks access to campus resources.

She approached university President Bill Powers with plans to make the university more accessible and was the first student ever appointed to UT’s Presidential ADA Accessibility Committee. She also started a Disabilities Inclusion Agency Action Committee before graduating cum laude with a degree in political communications. 

Erin’s own health crisis inspired her to pursue a law degree and to specialize in health and civil rights law. Erin earned her law degree at St. Louis University School of Law, where she graduated magna cum laude and was chosen by the faculty as the number one student in the top-ranked Health Law Program in the United States. She also worked as an advocate and health law consultant to the Missouri Legislature to eliminate barriers to health care access.

While in law school, Erin also clerked at the Missouri Commission on Human Rights on cases relating to race, gender, and disability-based discrimination. Because of this, she was honored with a scholarship from the Women Lawyer’s Association of Greater St. Louis for advancing the status of women in society.

While in law school, Erin also clerked at the Missouri Commission on Human Rights on cases relating to race, gender, and disability-based discrimination, and was honored with a scholarship from the Women Lawyer's Association of Greater St. Louis for advancing the status of women in society.

She was a faculty research fellow for two internationally-recognized health law scholars, and she completed a legal fellowship in constitutional and public health law at ChangeLab Solutions, a health equity-focused policy nonprofit. She has published multiple research reports as both a lead and contributing author.